84 John Welsh, the Irongray Covenanter. 



Welsh ag-ain escaped pursuit. He was, of course, men- 

 tioned in the proclamation against rebels, June 26th, 1679. 

 How he escaped I do not know. The next trace of him I find 

 is at Edinburgh. In Wodrow's Analecta, n, 12-13 • — " ^^ 

 was in Edinburgh towards the end of 1679." There had been 

 a great intimacy between Welsh and Hamilton of Kinkell, 

 who was then in prison in Edinburgh. Mr Hamilton was 

 suffered to go out sometimes with a keeper in the day time, 

 and came still at night back. One day finding Mr Welsh in 

 town and desirous to meet him, he got rid of his keeper for a 

 little money, and came where Welsh was. W^hen they were 

 together his wife brought the alarm that there was a search, 

 and that it was already in the same land they were in. Mr 

 Welsh paused for a little, and at length he said to Mistress 

 Hamilton : — " Be not afraid, I am assured the searcher shall 

 not once come near us !" And so it was, they did not enter 

 that house. This was the last time Mr Welsh was at Edin- 

 burgh before he went to London and died. 



Wodrow records a prophecy of Welsh after the break at 

 Bothwell Bridge. (Analecta, i., 132.) Patrick Walker also 

 gives a similar version in his life of Peden. I quote it, but I 

 hope Welsh did not talk such rubbish : — " Sir, O ! but I have 

 great news to tell you this day ; but you may say can you tell 

 us greater news than them that's in Edinburgh, that they are 

 heading and hanging and shedding the blood of the saints? 

 But said he, I have greater news to tell you from my great 

 Master, and that is, I see all Scotland a field of blood, and I 

 see all England and Ireland a field of blood ■ but before that 

 time the Church will get a breathing but she will fall asleep, 

 and will not improve it ; but the first wakening she will get, a 

 man will step over his bedside in his wife and children's blood ; 

 then the Church will awaken, and it will be at such a nick of 

 time that none of the nations will be able to help another. O ! 

 but any of you who have moyen with our Lord, had need to 

 pray that that sad day may be prevented ; but the decree is 

 gone forth, and past in heaven, it is past remedy." 



Welsh's usefulness was past if he had come to babble 

 nonsense of this sort. His power in Scotland at anyrate was 

 broken. Wild men like Cameron, Cargill, and Peden were 



